Ronda Rousey Officially Launches Women’s MMA

If Women’s MMA was a startup, it would be getting ready for it’s official launch on Saturday, February 23, 2013. All those years of being in beta with the smaller promotions and iterating with the likes of Gina Carano, Cris Cyborg, Marloes Coenen, and Meisha Tate have all culminated to the historical event of UFC 157: Rousey vs. Carmouche. Just think about this real quick. The first Women’s MMA match in the UFC, the biggest MMA promotion in the world, will be a main event by the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion, Ronda Rousey against an openly gay fighter in Liz Carmouche. You can’t have more of a exciting unique product to launch the division like that.

With this launch, the UFC isn’t holding back in getting as much press as possible. The difference is the press is coming to them, not vice versa. Dana White, President of the UFC, has said “This is without a doubt, the most media attention we’ve ever had leading up to a fight. And when I talk about media attention, I’m talking about big time media.” We’re talking about media outlets like ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated/CNN, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, HBO, NBC News, The Rolling Stone and that’s not even including the traditional MMA media outlets it’s flooding already. That’s really due to the star Ronda Rousey has become. She’s a rare breed, a stunning beauty with a real fighter’s mentality coupled with a killer instinct. I’d even go as far as calling her the Mike Tyson of Women’s MMA, but instead of a first round knockout — she delivers first round armbars, which she has done in each of her last 6 fights.

This new division in the UFC, this new product, is ready to launch this Saturday. It’s not totally complete yet, there’s probably a good amount of bugs to iron out — but it’s 80% there. It’s taken a while to get here, but the structure has been laid. The UFC has started it’s first division with a group of the best women fighters around the world and now it’s time to get it in front of customers and see what happens. I for one will be tuning in to see an armbar, but I know others are looking to see a huge upset. Either way, you have to tune in — this is history in the making.